PERCEPTIONS OF FACULTY INFLUENCE ON ACADEMIC DECISIONS IN BASIC BACCALAUREATE NURSING PROGRAMS IN LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES AND SPECIALIZED COLLEGES OF NURSING.
Contributors: St. Louis University.
Published: 1993
Number of pages: 171
Subjects: Education, Higher.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: Nursing faculty participation in academic decisions in both liberal arts colleges and in the emerging specialized colleges of nursing are the focus for this study. A conceptual framework was developed proposing that these collegiate settings operate as professional bureaucracies, that a situational leadership model provides a continuum of decision participation in such professional settings, and that the perceptions of leaders and followers regarding follower participation in decisions in professional settings are different.

Quantitative survey methodology was utilized. Academic nurse administrators and full-time faculty in 10 specialized colleges of nursing and 19 departments/schools of nursing in liberal arts and comprehensive II colleges and universities were surveyed. In addition to supplying demographic and experiential information, participants indicated their perceptions of the level of faculty participation in academic decisions on a five point scale drawn from the situational leadership model.

Two-sample t tests were used to determine differences in perceptions of faculty participation between the academic nurse administrators and between the nurse faculty in the two settings. Nurse administrators in the two types of programs showed statistically significant differences only in the general decision area of curriculum and on four of the 25 individual decision variables. Nurse faculty demonstrated differences in their perceptions on all four of the general decision areas and on 10 of the individual decision items. In all but one instance, faculty in liberal arts settings perceived higher levels of participation than did their counterparts in specialized colleges.

One-group repeated measures analyses of variance were employed to determine significance of variations in perceptions of administrators and faculty across the four decision areas. Statistically significant variance was demonstrated for both groups among the four types of academic decisions.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-01, Section: A, page: 0052.

Thesis (PH.D.)--SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY, 1993.

School code: 0193.